Hello everyone! It has been a very long time since I have checked in. It was my hope to stay on a rigid blogging schedule, but I see now that this is not a good model for me. Life, as all of you well know, is... messy. Despite my best attempts to introduce structure to my life and my work, things have melted down into disarray. Why? To understand this, we must first review the first two laws of thermodynamics:
1st Law of Thermodynamics: Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but instead moves between different states.
Classically, examples of energetic states include kinetic, chemical, and heat energy. For our discussion however, it will be more useful to think of energy in terms of mental energy (the energy that exists as coherent thoughts), professional energy (the energy stored in finances), and emotional energy (energy stored as one's general feelings in life). For instance, in order to advance one's financial standing, one must expend either mental energy, emotional energy, or both to produce professional energy. In order to gain back mental and emotional energy, one must expend professional energy (money) in the form of time off of work, a tub of cookie dough, or fishing tackle. Now that you understand a bit more about the states of energy, we can proceed to the second law of thermodynamics
2nd Law of Thermodynamics: The entropy (disorder) of a system that is not in thermal equilibrium will always increase.
Understanding this law does not require that we alter our conception of any part of it. It is already perfect and universally applicable. Simply put, it means that a system will not become more orderly unless energy is applied to it. Take laundry, for instance. A pile of clothes on the floor will remain disorganized unless one where to expend energy folding them and putting them in drawers. Professional energy could be applied, making one late to work, mental energy could be applied by forfeiting sleep, and emotional energy could be applied by not watching youtube videos. A much smaller amount of energy would be required to pick choice articles of clothing out of the pile and then return them to the pile after they are worn, thus conserving energy.
There is a 3rd Law of Thermodynamics, which states that as the temperature (heat energy) of a system approaches zero, the entropy of the system approaches a constant value. We will see how this applies later in the discussion
Back to why I haven't update the blog in a very very long time. I am currently in my 3rd semester of my second master's degree. I was a PhD student, but for personal lifestyle reasons, I have decided cut my project off at a master's level and wrap things up much sooner. Much much sooner. In order to attain my current degree, I must have successfully defended and submitted a thesis by March, 2014. This past August, I felt the weight of that deadline hanging over me, falling at blistering speeds to eventually crush me if I didn't get moving quickly. Taking photographs requires some expenditure of mental energy and emotional energy on my part, lets say... 5 units of mental energy and 5 units of emotional energy are needed for me to go take pictures. I (the system) have only 100 units of energy that can be in various states at any one time. I enjoy taking photographs immensely, so I am gaining emotional energy. We will say that I produce 30 units of emotional energy by taking photographs, thus I gain 25 units of emotional energy by taking photos (30 minus the 5 needed to initiate the reaction). Well, if I have only spent 5 units of mental energy but am gaining 25 units of emotional energy. According to the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, this is not possible in a closed system (which, for now, we will assume that I am). Therefore 20 units of energy must be converted from some other state. Seeing as how I make practically no money from photography, we can consider the amount of professional energy produced from taking photographs to be negligible AND it is taking away time from doing lab work and writing my thesis. Therefore the missing 20 units of energy are subtracted from the pool of professional energy. Given my deadline, you might now understand where the conflict comes from. I have been banging my head against the computer and the lab bench for the past month in an effort to maintain a pool of professional energy, but at the expense of mental and emotional energy.
So how exactly am I going to meet this deadline and graduate? When I wake up in the morning lets assume that all of the time that I have spent sleeping has converted all of my energy into 60 units of mental energy and 40 units of emotional energy. To produce 1 unit of professional energy I must expend 2 units of mental energy and 1 unit of emotional energy. This means that at the end of the work day I will have converted 60 units of mental energy and 30 units of emotional energy into just 30 units of professional energy and leaving 0 units of mental energy and 10 units of emotional energy, except that I am maintaining a long distance relationship from my fiance and trying to finish planning a wedding, which requires an additional 20 units of emotional energy. Not only do I no longer have any mental or emotional energy to expend in catalyzing photography but now I am at -10 units of emotional energy. Where does this remaining energy come from?... The answer is heat. So long as this process continues, I will become colder and colder until I have reached absolute zero. This is my thermal equilibrium and so long as I still have warmth, I will be in a constant battle against disorder (dirty dishes and laundry) which must be taken care of before photography can be initiated.
Up until now we have considered me to be a closed system, but this is
an oversimplification. I am an easily definable sub-system within
increasingly large systems until we have included the entire universe.
But, I mostly interact with a larger system called "Earth". Let us say
that I must maintain an average of 30 units of professional energy per
day in order to graduate by my deadline. If there were a perfectly
efficient transfer of energy from the mental state to the professional
state, I could simply sleep, then work, then sleep, then work, and keep
exchanging energy between those two states while the pool of emotional
energy remained constant. However the efficiency of transforming mental
energy to professional energy is extremely low; somewhere on the order
of 5 units of mental energy produce 1 unit of professional energy. In
order to maintain 30 units of professional energy produced per day, I
would need to expend 150 units of mental energy per day.
So
where are the other 4 units of mental energy going? They are leaving
the sub-system (me) and interacting with the Earth in the form of heat
energy. While banging my head against the lab bench or keyboard or
ripping my hair out I am giving off heat to the environment. This,
combined with increased CO2 emissions from hyperventilating, results in
my unwilling but unavoidable contribution to human-induced global
climate change. I am forced then to conclude that working on my thesis
is a natural disaster.
The answer, I believe, is to find a way to produce professional energy in a way that more efficiently utilizes mental energy and either replenishes or does not deplete emotional energy. All that I can hope for is that I have enough energy stored as heat to make it through this degree.
Anyone hiring next spring?
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